Faced with
what seems to be an increasing level of misleading rhetoric about
conservative positions on public policy issues, The National
Center for Public Policy Research has resolved to help bridge
the gap between rhetoric and reality.

Disclaimer: We freely acknowledge
that not all conservatives share every view related as "what
conservatives think," nor does every speaker of what our
editors perceive to be a left-wing comment think of themselves
as "liberal." However, unanimity is impossible on questions
such as these. We therefore offer our best judgment, and offer
apologies to anyone who believes we could have done better.

Persons with
an opinion on any of our judgments are welcome to write us at
[email protected]. Be sure to tell us
if you object to having your comments reproduced, as we may otherwise
post an occasional comment on our blog.

Published by
The National Center for Public Policy Research

Photo of Valley
Forge National Historic Park by James Lemass

National Security: Has George
Bush Abandoned Global Leadership?

The Left Says:

"For almost three years now, the world has been
given quite a different view of the United States than the one
to which it had been accustomed. It has seen global leadership
abandoned and replaced with what now is known as American unilateralism
-- the Bush administration's disdain for international agreements
and sometimes for diplomacy itself. The unilateralism has been
a virtual addiction -- a truculent constant in a presidency otherwise
marked by inconstancy."

Global leadership isn't defined
as waiting for a thumb's up from the U.N. secretary general.

The war in Iraq, easily the most significant
international action of this Bush's presidency, was not one in
which the Bush Administration acted alone. Nearly 50 sovereign
nations are providing political, military, intelligence and/or
economic support to the Iraq effort.

The notion that the U.S. should subsume
its national security policy under the U.N. deserves to be addressed,
however. The U.N. leadership was elected by governments, not
peoples, and as such, it lacks the moral authority to govern.
It would be wrong for President Bush to place U.S. national security
policy under the control of a body not elected by the American
people.

Walter Cronkite argues that George W.
Bush's "unilateralism" is out of the presidential mainstream.
Yet, during the Reagan Administration, Cronkite also complained
that President Reagan acted unilaterally.(1) It sounds as though
Cronkite's actual complaint is that Bush is a president in the
Reagan model.

Bush isn't out of the presidential mainstream
at all -- just out of the liberal mainstream.

Source:
(1) Media
Research Center CyberAlert, September 17, 2002, citing the following Cronkite
quote from the December 5, 1988 edition of Newsweek: "I know liberalism isn't dead
in this country. It simply has, temporarily we hope, lost its
voice....We know that unilateral action in Grenada and Tripoli
was wrong. We know that 'Star Wars' means uncontrollable escalation
of the arms race. We know that the real threat to democracy is
the half of the nation in poverty. We know that no one should
tell a woman she has to bear an unwanted child....Gawd Almighty,
we've got to shout these truths in which we believe from the
housetops. Like that scene in the movie 'Network,' we've got
to throw open our windows and shout these truths to the streets
and the heavens. And I bet we'll find more windows are thrown
open to join the chorus than we'd ever dreamed possible."